Excite Inc. said it has signed agreements for
$21 million in advertising revenues in connection with its two-year
partnership with Netscape.
The new agreements show high advertiser demand for keyword, directory, channel
and sponsorship opportunities, Excite said. Specifics were not disclosed.
The recently announced Netscape-Excite deal allows Excite to sell and program
search, directory and a suite of channels for Netscape NetCenter.
Anticipating continued advertiser demand, and with no immediate constraints on
search or channels ad inventory on Netscape, Excite said it has hired 12 new
sales people since the announcement of its Netscape agreement three weeks ago.
“We are gratified to see the early reaction from the advertising community and
anticipate continued ad revenue opportunities as our access to valued Netscape
ad inventory increases over the course of the agreement”, said George Bell,
president and CEO of Excite.
“On this the first day of our new search
agreement, and with two years of selling still in front of us, we’ve signed
agreements for 30% of the initial $70 million committed to secure our highly
prized Netscape relationship. Prior to signing the agreement with Netscape, we
perceived that its considerable inventory had been under-leveraged in the
past, and our early sales numbers offer powerful validation of this fact and
of the future opportunity.”